


An Intermezzo

by tobinlaughing



Series: Acting Classes [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Espionage, Gen, Revenge, awesome doctor foster, evil darcy, jane foster - Freeform, jane with a backbone, natasha romanov - Freeform, oops I killed someone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2013-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-22 16:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/915613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tobinlaughing/pseuds/tobinlaughing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part 3 of the Acting Classes series. Warning is for events from Part 1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Intermezzo

Nat hadn't told anyone. There really wasn't anyone _to_ tell anymore--Clint was the only person to ever be privy to any and all of her secrets, and Clint was dead. Door shut, vault locked, nails driven into the coffin: she simply had nowhere else to whisper her secrets, so she did not whisper them at all. But somehow...

Jane's shadow measured itself on the carpet in front of the common room kitchen door ( _bless Tony_ , Nat thought, _for designing the lighting in this place to always give us the advantage_ : overhead track lights always reflected out of a room to foil attempts at ambush) and Nat paused, not wanting to intrude on a phone call or moment of emotion intense enough to drive Dr Foster from a room. Instead of either, Jane locked eyes with the redheaded assassin as she soft-footed around the corner, and somehow it hit Nat that Jane had found out, too.

"So, this...Emma." She drew out the name: _ehhemmmmmmaaaaaah_ , as though laying it bare beneath dissection tools and a scouring with formaldehyde, trying to make it presentable for the world one last time. "I assume you have a plan."

"It is entirely possible. But Dr Foster," Nat folded her arms and leaned casually against the opposite wall, "it is also entirely possible that I have no idea who this...Emma...is."

"Don't bullshit me, Natasha." Foster cut her off before Nat could spin out a more interesting backpedal. "You've been looking since she killed Barton. The news came in this afternoon and I want to know what you plan to do about it." Foster had once been a lecturer at Culver, Nat knew; from lectures to graduate advising to full-time research, she'd been rapidly shifted out of regular contact with all but the most stalwart and determined students--in part because her research was exciting, distracting, promising and lucrative, and in part because she had a nasty habit of making most or all of her students cry. Nat hadn't believed that when Bruce let it slip one night over dinner; now, trying not to blink against the doctor's adamantine stare, it was a little easier to wrap her head around. Jane's gaze bored into hers like she was trying to vaporize the other woman's retina. Nat suddenly realized--even after more than one experience with the real action--that this was what people were referring to when they compared something to being poked in the eye with a stick, although in Jane's case, it was closer to a deep-well drill.

"Will it do me any good to ask how you got notice of my search?" Nat asked lightly, trying to stall for time, to make Jane relax, or even blink. If she didn't blink she'd start tearing up soon and this was no time for a crying jag.

Jane shrugged. "One of the Asgardians owed me a favor," she explained dismissively, finally looking away. Nat blinked rapidly, the other woman's image strobing before her, until Jane locked eyes with her again. "Once Heimdall told me where you were looking, I got JARVIS to sneak a back door onto your server. "

"You hacked JARVIS? _You_?"

Jane lifted her shoulders again, but this was not false modesty. "He's not so different from a lot of my spectroanalysis programs, although he's a good deal more patient and doesn't tend to flip out on me when he encounters something unexpected." Jane was quiet for a second. Then: "You do have a plan, don't you?"

"I have a name." Jane had _Heimdall_ spying for her. There was no use in dissembling now. "A name, and an employer. She--this Emma--is a covert agent for AIM."

"AIM? How are they even a thing?"

"Same way Stark Industries is a 'thing'. They had a rich smart guy behind them, calling the shots. If he hadn't been so eager to push the weapons potential of Extremis, he might have actually given Stark a run for its money. Now they're recouperating, but they're not gone, not by a long shot." Nat nodded at Dr Foster. "Didn't they come headhunting you a couple times?"

"Sure, but why would I want to join a think-tank? I don't even like working here, but Stark keeps pushing funding my way and Thor..." she blushed, just a little: the Asgardian thunder-god was more than enthusiastic in his every romantic gesture, and it had taken about six months to get Stark himself to stop cracking 'morning-after' jokes when the astrophysicist and her sometime-fertility-god boyfriend would emerge from their rooms after what Tony crudely dubbed "a week END bend-HER". Jane didn't know if she'd ever condition her response to Thor's name to _not_ include furious blushing. "Well, even if he's not a scientist he still knows a hell of a lot more about the Asgardian end of the Bifrost than I do. I'm not putting the gift horse under the microscope."

"It'll be a while," Nat said after a moment's silence. Jane looked up. "The plan, I mean. I don't have a concrete plan yet. I need to spend a couple days looking at face-recognition software to see if I can spot her, maybe track her on some patterns of movement. Once I know where she's been and what she's been up to I can suss out her patterns and from there I'll develop something appropriate. I can let you know--"

"I'll go with you."

"You will not."

"You're flying solo these days," Jane held up a hand, "and you're flying under the radar. You need someone to watch your back. And I can always tell Fury what you've been working on."

That was a low blow, and Nat could see that Jane used it deliberately. _She must be a terrible haggler_ , part of Nat's brain mused. _She shows her hand too early. Bet she keeps those New York city subway panhandlers in meat any time she's in town._

As if reading her thoughts, Jane added, "And this isn't a negotiation. I'm going, whether it be with you or with an entire National Guard unit who doesn't know what they're up against and might get themselves killed. And I'll bring Thor, which will _definitely_ get people killed."

Nat was still shaking her head. "No. No, no, no. Dr Foster, I appreciate your zeal but you're not trained for fieldwork."

"Then train me."

"What?"

"You train me. Teach me how to be a government-issued ninja. Then take me with you to find this Emma bitch."

"Do you know how long it... Never mind. I can't believe I'm having this conversation. No, and with respect, no."

"You can't just dismiss me out of hand--"

"You want training? Fine, go sign up for one of Sitwell's self-defense classes. Start there, and maybe in five years or so you and I can start sparring. But you are not coming with on this operation, and you will not tell Fury or Hill where I'm going. You are not qualified, you are not prepared, and you are most certainly not at the head of the line to blow this bitch's brains out."

"Am I not?" And now Jane actually stepped up to Natasha--and had the assassin been less surprised, Jane might have ended up at the other side of the lushly-carpeted hallway with plaster crumbling around her. As it was, Nat found herself momentarily clenching her fists to charge the Widow Bites she wore--even if, just back from the training gym, she didn't have them on. "I know you and Barton were close," she whisper-growled, looking up into Natasha's face. "I know you're broken up about his death and I know all you want is to give this girl another hole to breathe through. But don't think for a second--not one second--that you're the only one who lost something here."

"Darcy was a good assistant, and good friend, I get that--"

" **No**." Jane didn't raise her voice, but the word cracked like a whip across the corridor. "No, she wasn't. Darcy stabbed me in the back, but do you know what she did first? She violated every iota of trust and respect we had between us. _She took my research_. Any and all preliminary findings on the Eistein-Rosen bridge--gone. Gone. Gone so those fuckwads over at AIM or HAMMER can try standing on my shoulders to get themselves over another hurdle in this stupid ultraspace arms race. Do you know how long I was tracking anomalies with a tablet hooked up to a Newton telescope? And how? _I invented the math for this,_ Natasha, and this...imposter bitch won my goddamn trust and then _stole_ my project. My baby. She put _my_ math and _my_ research and _my_ findings into the grubby little hands of Killian and Justin Hammer and--no. Just no. I will not sit idly by and wait for my observations to be used in blowing up government buildings. My baby," she finished. "My life."

_I am going to regret this_ , Nat thought. _I am going to curse my own name to the skies and wish I were dead. I'm going to wish she was dead. This is going to end really, really badly. She's a lab rat, not a field agent. Definitely not a covert agent. She'll get us both killed. I am going to regret this._

"Meet me at 6 in the training room. I'll show you a few things, and then we can go find this...Emma."


End file.
